Exploring the Undercommons

In the Spring of 2019 I engaged in an improvisatory, anti-disciplinary, subversive intellectual practice at Princeton University. Inspired by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten's open source book The Undercommons and Jack Halberstam's The Queer Art of Failure, I intentionally “failed” at a semester of my Princeton Arts Fellowship by engaging mostly in “non-productive” and non-curricular activities. My hope was to create knowledge, connections, collaborations, artworks and liminal activity which couldn't exist within a class or any other formal framework offered by the university. Moten and Harney describe how universities establish a type of “State” which structures and limits the knowledge and practices available. By utilizing the unique spaces and convergences on campus, but by stepping outside of the guidelines for “correctly” engaging, whole new possibilities can be made available. You can read my project proposal HERE.

“The slogan on the Left, then, ‘universities, not jails’ marks a choice that may not be possible. In other words, perhaps more universities promote more jails. Perhaps it is necessary finally to see that the university produces incarceration as the product of its negligence” - Fred Moten and Stefano Harney

My project was to release myself from the intellectual governance of the university. The heart of the work was creating a freeform Anti-Disiplinary Composers Club through word of mouth, which was basically a group of students who wanted to hang out and talk about all of these ideas as they related to music. I didn’t take any pictures of any of our meetings, hangouts or meals, but below I documented some of my other activities.